


This Photograph Is Proof

by Charlie Snow (Algedonic)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e04 The End, Fallen Castiel, Gen, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Algedonic/pseuds/Charlie%20Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There is exactly one known photograph of Sam Winchester left in existence.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Photograph Is Proof

There is exactly one known photograph of Sam Winchester left in existence. Cas has had it a long time – years, in fact. He keeps it folded in a pocket sewn into the lining of the green military jacket he wears in place of a trench coat since the apocalypse. Sometimes he goes weeks without looking at it, but it’s always there, a few layers of skin and bone and fabric away from his heart. He finds himself checking that it’s there, reaching in and running his fingers down the edge. It’s an unconscious habit – he’ll be sitting there listening to Dean and whoever else coordinating a supply run or discussing a mission with his feet on the table, just this side of stoned, and when he comes back to himself he’ll find his hand in his jacket. He knows Dean notices, but he never says anything, just gives Cas a look that Cas doesn’t care to decipher and ignores it.

Dean doesn’t know about the photo. There have been a thousand times that Cas has thought he should mention it, that he’s felt guilty for the whole thing, but he doesn’t know how Dean would react. There’s an unspoken rule around the compound about Sam. Dean hasn’t mentioned him since the prizefight, and neither has anyone else. Even if they did, no one would dare do it around Dean. So Cas doesn’t tell him. He knows the only way Dean is able to drag himself out of bed each morning is to bury his brother as deep as possible and lock him behind as many layers of tedium and work and distraction as possible. And Cas also knows that he is one of the few – _very_ few – reasons that Dean hasn’t taken Sam’s gun and one bullet out to the rusted shell of the Impala and cashed in his chips once and for all. Sometimes he and Dean will be back to back, surrounded by Croats, and Cas will wonder whether Dean is deliberately trying to get them killed. He thinks it might be subconscious, but the fact of the matter is that Dean doesn’t really care anymore. Dean keeps going for Cas, and Cas knows he’s already reminder enough of Sam as it is.

Now-Dean has to do things that Sam’s Dean would never – _could_ never – have done. Usually Cas can just sort of let it roll off him when there’s talk of torture or Dean writes a wounded comrade off as dead either way and puts a bullet in their head without flinching. He knows the world they live in. But sometimes there will be something, some tiny irony or turn of phrase that will call Sam’s memory up so quick and so vivid that if Cas didn’t know better he would swear he was in the room with them like a death echo and for a moment Cas remembers. He remembers who they were and his heart breaks for what they’ve become. They’ve both been running on fumes for years; Cas gets by with drugs and sex, Dean with alcohol and adrenaline, but the truth is neither one of them has any idea what they’re doing, and that, that feeling of regret and desperation must be what Dean sees when he catches Cas in these moments, and Dean always catches him. Inevitably, Dean’s eyes will flicker to his across the room then it’s just them and Sam and everything they’ve lost.

After Dean forces the emotion out of his eyes, clears the lump in his throat, and breaks eye contact, he turns and leaves. No matter what is happening at the time – packing trucks for a run, talking logistics, eating dinner – Dean will stop whatever he’s doing or saying and walk away without a word. For the next day or two his cabin will be locked and no one will see him. The first time this happened Chuck made the mistake of knocking on the door, attempting to see if their fearless leader was even still alive, considering he’d been locked in his cabin for 36 hours without even emerging for food. Dean had answered the door, cocked his gun in Chuck’s face, and said ‘the next fucking person that knocks on this door gets a bullet.’

It took another 8 hours for him to come out, back to as close to normal as anyone ever got post-apocalypse, but no one ever knocked on his door again.

In the photo, Sam is sitting in Bobby’s kitchen. He’s not smiling; his face is grim and determined, a hint of darkness in his eyes as he glances up at the camera. Dean is in the frame also, on Sam’s right side. He’s stitching up a long gash that curves around Sam’s bicep diagonally, starting in the back just above his elbow and ending six inches closer to his shoulder in the front. Dean is leaned in, a look of deep concentration on his face and Sam’s blood running down his forearms. Sam has his right hand on Dean’s knee and a bottle of whiskey in his left.

Cas hears a thud on the stairs outside, a muffled expletive or five, and then Dean is pounding on his door. He knows its Dean because no one else is ever awake at 4 in the morning around here, and Dean has spent the last 16 hours locked in his cabin. He forgets he’s got the photo in his hand and opens the door.

Dean is drunk. There’s a half empty bottle of whiskey in his hand and Dean doesn’t say anything, just looks at Cas and moves past him, sways a few feet away as Cas shuts the door. When he turns around, Cas is momentarily stricken by how utterly lost Dean looks. He’s become so used to now-Dean, their fearless leader, that sometimes he forgets that Dean is just a man who’s lost damn near everything he ever cared about, who only stepped up the plate on this whole thing because someone had to and there was no one else. He forgets that Dean used to smile, used to cry, used to get angry at the fucking injustice of it all. But right now all of it is written all over his face, and Dean looks like he’s hanging on by a thread.

His eyes slide to the worn 4 by 6 in Cas’s left hand, and then back up to his eyes. He’s probably always known.

“Let me see it.” He says, voice raw and whiskey-rough.

“Dean-“

“Please, Cas.”

Dean can only look at the photo for a few seconds before his face crumples and he chokes on a sob. Cas’s heart breaks all over again when Dean sinks to his knees, falling apart in front of him, shoulders heaving as he cries for the first time in God only knows how long. There is nothing Cas can do to take this weight from Dean, to stitch the pieces back together, but he goes to his knees anyway, pulls Dean close and holds him. Dean doesn’t pull away, just buries his face in Cas’s neck and clings to him, photo crumpling a little in his fist. They stay like that for a long time, rocking together on the floor, until Dean’s tears have soaked though Cas’s t-shirt and the exhaustion finally drives him to sleep.

Cas puts Dean in his own bed, tucks him in and places one gentle kiss on his forehead. He doesn’t sleep that night, just sits in the chair by the bed and watches over Dean like he used to when he was still an angel.

__

Two weeks later, Dean announces that they are going to kill the Devil. 

It’s a suicide mission. Cas can see it in Dean’s eyes when he looks at him; Dean knows the colt won’t work on Lucifer, and so does Cas. Dean just meets his eyes steadily.

“Cas?” He asks quietly, “You with me?”

Cas nods, his hand unthinkingly reaching for the photo in his pocket. “Of course, Dean. Always.”


End file.
